Last week, we brought you the news that the French firm had entered the flexible electronics realm with the launch of La Roche-Posay’s My UV Patch, the first-ever stretchable skin sensor designed to monitor UV exposure and help consumers educate themselves about sun protection.
Now Guive Balooch, Global VP of L’Oréal’s Technology Incubator who is in charge of the development of this innovation and launched it at the CES event, speaks about how this could just be the start.
“Technology is a new way for consumers to experience beauty. We want to develop new beautiful hardware, products, and software that helps people interact with beauty in new ways,” he says.
“Giving consumers the opportunity to wear an electronic device on their body that can measure different data has the potential to change the way they interact with our products and add value to their lives.”
There have already been examples of wearable technology that have had an effect on the consumer, such as the recent trend in the health sector for wearable fitness monitors, like the Fitbit, which allows consumers to track various information and promotes a lifestyle change.
Consumer tracking
The hope is that a wearable patch for beauty purposes could have the same effect as consumers will be able to monitor different data regarding skin condition.
“My UV Patch is the first sensor to use photo-oxidated dye that consumers can take a photo of and be analysed,” says Balooch.
“It’s a totally new and very accurate way of measuring UV, and it’s also the first-ever stretchable electronic in the world that is linked to UV...”
The L’Oréal man explains that the key was to design a sensor that was thin, comfortable, and virtually weightless so people would actually want to wear it.
“We’re excited to be the first beauty company entering the stretchable electronics field and to explore the many potential applications for this technology within our industry and beyond,” he adds.
“It was difficult to make a transparent adhesive that was thin and comfortable enough to act as a second skin. That’s exactly where all the innovation comes with this type of technology --so this wearable can adapt to the consumers’ lifestyle and every day activities.”
My UV patch
The La Roche-Posay My UV Patch is the first-ever stretchable, wearable skin sensor designed to measure an individual’s UV exposure.
It is thinner than a strand of hair, and is designed with a heart filled with various shades of blue and white squares, which contain photosensitive dyes. As the photosensitive dyes within the patch are exposed to UV rays, squares of colour will change to indicate varying levels of sun exposure.
The consumer can take a photo of the patch and upload it to the My UV Patch app, which analyses the varying shades of blue and determines the amount of UV exposure the wearer has received.